June 28, 2005

Come and take them.

The notorious supreme court ruling handed down this week in Kelo vs. New London demoted every man from citizen to serf. The ruling redefines homeowners as transient squatters. Under the new ruling, the cities will view homeowners as revenue theives, condemn their homes, bulldoze them, and award the property to commercial developers.

In 480 B.C., the Persian Emporer Xerxes took 600,000 of the fiercest fighting troops in the world to conquer and invade Greece. As the Greeks retreated to the South, they needed time to regroup and strengthen their Navy. The Spartan General-King Leonidas, his 300 personal bodyguards and a handful of Thebans and others volunteered to hold back Xerxes's troops as long as possible, while the main Greek army retreated to the South. They chose to make their defiant, suicidal stand at the narrow pass of Thermoplyae. When Xerxes offered to spare their lives if they would lay down their arms, Leonidas shouted these two words back. Molon Labe! (mo-lone lah-veh) They mean, “Come and get them!” They made their stand at Thermopylae, and they all died to the last man. Today, a plaque at the site commemorates the event. It reads: "Go tell the Spartans, travelers passing by, that here, obedient to their laws we lie."

For two years, villagers in China's Hebei province have refused to leave 67 acres of their land that the local government granted to a state-owned power company. On June 11, six villagers were killed in a confrontation between hired thugs with pipes and locals wielding pitchforks. This week, government officials backed off.

The Washington Post report suggests it may have been video of the brutal June riot, recorded by one of the local farmers and distributed over the internet, that led to the about-face.